On April 21, I will be running the Boston Marathon as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training (TNT). This will be my first time running the Boston Marathon (something I’ve always aspired to do), but not my first time running for TNT. I have been a supporter of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society ever since my husband Ted’s lymphoma diagnosis. Ted has been cancer-free eight years now, but my involvement with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has only grown. I started as a volunteer, have run several marathons for TNT, and am now an employee, thrilled to be working to support a mission so personally meaningful to me. It also gives me a chance to see firsthand the amazing breakthroughs being made right now in blood cancer research–research that The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is funding.

In fact, one of the most exciting research breakthroughs is happening right here at Penn. A team led by Carl June, MD, has developed a new treatment for leukemia that involves genetically engineering patients’ own immune cells to seek out, target and kill cancer cells. This new therapy has been tested in leukemia patients for whom all other treatments had failed. The results of the study have been nothing short of astounding, with the majority of patients–including children with the most common form of childhood cancer–achieving complete remission. This is research that The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society recognized as promising and worthy of support as far back as 1992, long before it achieved the success it is having today. In fact, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has committed $20 million to this research over these past 12 years, including a current $6 million grant.

This remarkable new treatment developed at Penn is now being tested in other types of blood cancers and is a bright ray of hope for those battling these diseases. But there is more work to be done. There are more than a million Americans living with leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma. Many are still desperately in need of cures. I am running the Boston Marathon to help raise the funds needed to find those cures. If you would like to help by making a donation to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, please click on this link to my fundraising page:http://wch.lls.llsevent.org/rplonsker